Bump in the Night
by Morkhan
Summary: Adam has lost both of his brothers. It's almost a shame that only one of them actually died. Dark!Fic. AU Season 2, spoilers for the entire series.
1. Dean

**Title:** Bump in the Night, chapter 1: Dean.  
**Author:** morkhan  
**Warnings:** Violence, cursing, abuse, allusions to suicide. Dark!Fic  
**Characters:** Adam, Dean, Sam, Bobby.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** 3845  
**Summary:** Adam has lost both of his brothers. It's almost a shame that only one of them actually died.  
**Disclaimer:** I cannot haz Winchesters. :(

**Author's Notes**: No idea where this came from. I went uber!dark for this one. Background assumptions for this fic: it's the end of an AU Season 2. Kate is dead and Adam has been travelling with the boys for about a year, joining them shortly after John's death. Other than that, most of the big things went down the same way. _Most_ of them...

All reviews appreciated.

**EDIT:** Thanks to TheLadyPendragon for reminding me: I how a huge debt of gratitude to Lackadaisy's story _A Healing Pain_ on livejournal. It was a large part of what inspired me to write this to begin with. You can read it here, with appropriate additions and minus spaces. (/ community . livejournal . com/somehotlazyday/11219 . html#cutid1)

* * *

"I loved him too, you know," he says. He knows it's a mistake before he finishes speaking, but it's too late to cut it off, and it wouldn't make it any less true.

That's the first time Dean _really_ hits him.

Not the first time Dean has punched him, not by a long shot—they are half-brothers, after all, and similar in ways that can't be explained by blood alone. Being forced to live and work and drive and fight and die in each others' arms for months and months and _months_ is bound to create tension between even the closest of friends. And he and Dean… well, half-brothers they might be, but 'friends' is stretching it.

But Adam knows as soon as it happens that every other fight they've had, every other time Dean socked him for pushing one button too many… those were nothing. He was holding back, probably because he had to. Now that he's experienced it firsthand, he knows—an honest-to-God, lay-you-the-fuck-_**out**_ punch from Dean Winchester is not something he would have _survived_ when he first joined his brothers. The year has hardened him, changed him in ways he never thought possible, showed him just how much he can take, pushed him against the very limits of his endurance, his strength, his will to survive, and then pushed him further, made him take even more.

After the year he's been through, the list of things that really, truly scare him is pitifully short.

Dean is on it now. He is Number One with a bullet.

All five senses are jumbled and tossed and ruined in the aftermath. He's blind for a few minutes, his vision going blacker and blacker until it hits bottom and bounces right back up into white. His ears are ringing; a high-pitched non-noise that drowns any actual sounds that may or may not be happening around him. Taste and smell are trying to tell him something, but they are talking over each other and getting everything all jumbled together. And touch… well, touch _has_ to be fucked up because he doesn't hurt. He will, though. He knows that much. He'll be feeling this one for days, weeks, maybe the rest of his life.

When his senses finally come back—when the white recedes like a draining bathtub to reveal actual shapes, when the whine gives way to the steady rumble of the cheap motel air conditioner, when he realizes his mouth and nose are saying the same thing (_blood_), and his sense of touch finally _oh fuck oh fuck oh __**FUCK OH GOD SHIT FUCK THAT HURTS LIKE A BITCH**_—he notices that Dean is gone, and doesn't know why he is disappointed. He isn't really expecting an apology. A hit like that isn't something you can take back. A regular punch, maybe, an angry, pissed off, half-drunk punch, sure. But that wasn't one of those. That was an _I want you to fucking __**bleed**_ punch. You don't hit someone like that unless you intend to lay them out for a long time—possibly forever.

Still. An ice pack would have been nice, even if it was tossed at him because Dean didn't want his face swelling and calling more attention to them. Or maybe a 'suck it up, pussy' telling him to get up off the ground and stop whining because Sammy could have taken that punch easy, taken it on his feet and given back just as well. Something, anything would be better than nothing. But nothing is what he gets in the aftermath. Dean is gone, off to some bar to hustle and drown, and he left like punching the _shit_ out of his baby brother was just an item on his list to check off before he went.

**Dean's To-Do List:**

1. Clean guns.

2. Shower and shave.

3. Make grocery list.

4. Knock Adam's fucking head off.

5. Head to bar.

He knows he should leave. He's not a complete dumbass, no matter what Dean says to him every fucking day since Sammy (and there the sentence ends). He's seen the Very Special Episodes, he's watched the crappy Lifetime movies with his mom late in the evening after she got home from work, and he knows what this is. He knows it won't end here, not unless he ends it himself. But where is he going to go? Who is he going to go _to_? Dean is it for him, and he thinks it's pretty fucking sad that he is pretty much it for Dean as well. So he stays.

It's the first time Dean _really_ hits him.

It's not the last.

* * *

He fights back at first, because **fuck** Dean; he's not weak, and if Dean expects him to take this shit lying down, he's got another thing coming. He knows a thing or two about fighting, even besides the things his brothers taught him, and Adam Milligan is no one's bitch. That's what he tells himself. At first. Unfortunately, Adam's year of experience pales in comparison to Dean's entire lifetime, and he quickly learns that fighting back is the quickest way to turn a _hit_ into a full-on, savage _beating_. And while a _hit_ will leave him disoriented and reeling for a few hours, a _beating_ will wreck him for **days**, and that means he can't hunt. Hunting is the only thing—the _**ONLY**_ thing—that makes him feel better, that lets him keep going.

Dean's not even angry when he does it. He's never angry. He's never _anything_, which is the scariest part of all. Dean will be telling him how to clean the guns, he'll fumble a bit, and _wham_. Adam will ask a question about Shapeshifters that Sammy would have known by heart, and _pop_. Dean will toss him a bag of take-out that spills on the bed because Adam's fingers are broken and he can't catch it, and _boom_. A punch, a kick, a backhand just for added disrespect. Each and every hit is like lightning from a clear blue sky, and Adam is just shy of being ashamed enough to swallow a gun when he starts flinching at the sound of Dean's voice. He half-expects Dean to draw some kind of twisted pleasure out of it, but his face remains the same stone-cold slate it has always been since Sammy (line over).

It's fucking pitiful, is what it is.

In the quiet moments, when Dean is not around and Adam is not constantly on high alert waiting for an ambush, he sits and contemplates the fact that he is now a real-live After School Special and just finds it_ pathetic_. He wonders; if Dad would have hit him like this. If Dad ever hit _Dean_ like this. If Sammy would have been the same way without Dean. And he knows it's useless, but when you're forcing yourself to stay awake because you have _another_ concussion and your next nap could be the Big One, sometimes, you can't help where your mind goes.

Sometimes he is pissed at Sammy, which is just completely off-the-map as far as Acceptable Targets for His Anger go. But things were going so well, before. Sam was everything he could have asked for in a big brother. He was always ready to teach, ready to listen, ready to tease and cajole and motivate whenever he was needed. He made Adam laugh, and laughed at Adam's lame comebacks. He took to the task of Big Brothering like he learned from the best, and when he talked about Dean, it was half hero-worship, and half full-on verbal apotheosis. But Adam was never a believer in the Church of Dean, and Dean didn't exactly want him as a convert. They fought and argued and bitched and picked at each other constantly, and it nearly drove Sam crazy. He once told Dean that if his and Dad's arguments were even **half** this annoying to listen to, then he could not apologize enough to his big brother for putting him through them.

It wasn't perfect, but it _was_ getting better. The more he and Dean were around each other, the easier their interactions seemed to get, and towards the end (which he didn't even know was coming), Adam even entertained the idea of them being kind-of-friends. And then Sammy (did more than this sentence can hold). And now? Well, isn't that funny—that idea is _dead_. It died suddenly. A smile. Relief. "_Dean._" A knife. Blood. Pain. A body. And then nothing. Forever. _Fuck_. And he thinks if Sam had just… if he'd just… (murdered someone? Executed an unarmed man?)

Then.

Then.

Something. Something that isn't _this_. Because he is having a pretty fucking hard time thinking of something that wouldn't be better than _this_, and the only reason he has _this_ is because Sammy (stopped, like this sentence). But he can't change anything, isn't sure if he would. Isn't sure if he could ask Sam to kill in cold blood for him (for Dean, too). Doesn't think so. Loves him too much. Loves him. Loves him. _Loved him_.

He makes another mistake that night.

When Dean walks through the door at dark-thirty in the morning, Adam is pointing a gun at him with tears in his eyes, because how the _fuck_ did his life turn into this? Dean doesn't even blink. He walks up to Adam without a care in the world, pauses for just a second like he's waiting for something, and when nothing comes, he snatches the pistol from his hand and cracks Adam across the nose with it, knocking him to the floor.

A muddy boot slams into his chest, and he feels a rib crack. "First rule of firearms," Dean says with _nothing _in his voice.

Adam clenches his teeth and tries to curl into a ball, but Dean just kicks him again.

"First rule of firearms," Dean repeats. "Say it."

Adam grunts through clenched teeth. "Never point a gun at anything you aren't ready to kill."

The gun makes a hollow clatter as it hits the ground next to his head. "Maybe now you'll fucking remember."

He does. He never forgets it again.

* * *

The night he finally breaks, he tries to rationalize it away. Everyone has their limits, he tells himself. It isn't shameful to want out of constant misery and fear and pain, and it isn't shameful to ask for help. It makes him feel no less ashamed when he fucking _whimpers_ into the phone "B-Bobby…" and hangs up hoping that Bobby didn't hear him because he's **not this weak**. He shouldn't be breaking already. And yet, when Bobby appears a day later, having tracked them down after nearly having a heart attack because he thought they were _dead_, he nearly cries with relief. Bobby looks him over and makes some kind of comment about going a couple of rounds with an elephant, asks what the Hell happened to him. When Adam doesn't answer, Bobby has no trouble connecting the dots, because he's been at this for years, and he knows how to tell the wounds a hunter _gets_ from the wounds a hunter _gives_, and his face is the perfect mixture of unfettered grief and the coldest fury Adam has ever seen when he hands him the keys and says "_Go wait in my car, son. You don't need to see this._"

Adam doesn't even bother to grab his stuff; he just _goes_, because he is tired. He doesn't even realize how utterly and completely **drained** he is until he sits in the passenger's seat of Bobby's Chevelle and his entire body from hair to toenails just _sighs_, and Adam goes completely limp. As limp, he realizes, as Sam was the last time he saw him. It isn't until he sees Dean going into the room and realizes that Bobby has not left that he understands what Bobby probably doesn't want him to see. He sits. He sits for what seems like forever, waiting for something, anything. After a while, his stomach churns with dread as he fears that maybe Bobby isn't coming out, that maybe he can't. He quietly gets out of the car and goes to the door, just in time to hear Bobby uttering words that cut marrow-deep. "_…ever thought I'd see the day you sunk lower than your daddy. You're __**worse**__ than what you hunt, and you're lucky I don't put a hole in you right now. But you hear this, Dean; I'm taking that boy with me, and if I see you near him again, I won't think twice."_

He wants to see Dean's face, if only to prove to himself that there's some part of him alive enough to feel. But Bobby told him to wait in the car, and he doesn't want to piss Bobby off so soon, so he goes and waits. Bobby joins him shortly thereafter, and they drive for a long-ass time with nothing but silence between them.

"Son," Bobby finally speaks. "I wish I knew what to say. _God_, Adam. Why didn't you tell me before?"

Adam shrugs. "Thought he'd stop." It's the weakest lie he's ever told.

"That's horse shit, and you know it," Bobby says.

"The fuck you want me to say, Bobby?" Adam asks, and for a moment, his voice is just as dead as Dean's. "I don't know. I don't fucking know, okay?"

"I'm just trying to help, Adam," Bobby sighs, looking as old as he is for the first time since Adam's known him.

Adam grinds his teeth. "Find me something to kill," he says. "That'll help."

* * *

It's two months and five hunts with Bobby before he hears another word from Dean, and to say he's shocked is kind of like saying that night hags are a little on the ugly side. He figured Dean was happy to be rid of him. Bobby hears the phone and answers, and Adam knows by his tone alone that Dean is on the other line. "…and floss your ass with it, Dean. I got no time for you." Silence. "He ain't got nothin' to say to you, boy." More silence. "You can go fuck yourself with a tire iron for all I care. I told you before—you send me _proof_, we can talk. 'til then, you go find whatever whore's ass you crawled out of this morning and crawl yourself right back in." Too much silence. "Dyin' my ass. You sound fit as a fiddle to me. A drunk fiddle, maybe." That gets Adam's attention, and he is just as shocked as he was to hear from Dean to suddenly learn that he doesn't want him to die. He moves into the room. "Nothing to talk about, Dean. I'm done, and I'm hanging up. You're making my goddamn teeth hurt."

Adam snatches the phone from his hand, holding up his own to silence Bobby's protests. He puts it up to his ear.

"_Goddamn it, Bobby, this is important!_" Adam freezes completely at the sound of that voice, because it sounds like _Dean_. Not the Dean-shaped zombie that munched on Adam's soul for months and months. Living, breathing, feeling, Dean. "_Bobby, you there? Please don't hang up on me_."

"Dean," Adam says, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

"_Adam?_" Dean whispers his name like he's afraid to scare him off. "_That you, kid?_"

"What do you want, Dean?" Adam says, because the conversation is two sentences long and he already feels drained.

"_Just listen to me, Adam, please. I'm sorry, kid. Please know that. I am so goddamn fucking sorry…_"

"No," Adam cuts him off, and has to fight to keep from hanging up. "No apologies, Dean. It's too late. What you did to me is way beyond 'sorry.'"

"_I know, Adam. Believe me, I know. And I'm gonna make it right, I promise._"

Adam is taken aback at Dean's arrogance. "Make it _right?_ You _stupid, self-centered __**jackass**_. How can you even _say_ that?"

"_I __**am**__, Adam, I swear to God. And I know, kid. I know you loved him,_" and Adam rising fury screeches to a halt. "_That's why I trust you to do this. You're the only one I can trust._"

"Dean, what are you talking about?" Adam asks. Dean is rambling, and if he didn't know his brother's drunk voice so well, Adam would suspect he was three (or ten) sheets to the wind at this point.

"_You'll see," _Dean says, and Adam's heart stops for a second.

"Don't you dare," he seethes, and Bobby moves to take the phone away from him. Adam barely dodges him. "Don't you dare come up here. I don't wanna see you."

"_I'm not, kid, don't worry about that. You won't ever have to see or hear from me again after today. I just need you to do one thing for me, okay? One thing, and I know you can do it. You're the only one I can trust with this._"

"Dean, _**what are you talking about**_**?**" Adam says, seriously starting to lose his patience because he's been getting violently bounced between mood extremes for the entire length of this conversation and it's making him nauseous.

"_Take care of Sammy, Adam_."

Adam's heart stops. Again. He's pretty sure that isn't good for him. "Dean… Sammy's…" And for the first time since it happened, he forces himself to say it out loud. "Sammy's _dead_. Are you okay? You're not making any sense." Bobby's eyes make a valiant attempt to leap straight out of his head and into the phone to confront Dean personally.

"_You'll see. I… you won't believe me, and I don't blame you, but I do love you, kid. Be good. Take good care of Sammy."_

The phone is suddenly back in Bobby's hand. "Dean! You stupid, _stupid_ son of a bitch, what the Hell do you think you're doing? Dean? DEAN!" Bobby hurls the phone across the room. "What'd he tell you?"

"Bobby, what…"

"What did he _say_! Damn it, boy, this is important."

Adam can barely bring himself to repeat it. "He told me to take care of Sam."

"_Damn it_, Dean," Bobby growls, before snatching Adam by the collar and dragging him out the door.

"Where are we going?" Adam asks.

"To stop your damn fool brother from killing himself," Bobby says, and Adam no longer needs to be dragged.

* * *

They are, of course, too late. Bobby gets a friend to trace the signal on Dean's phone, but when they get to the motel, they find everything but Dean—all of Dean's possessions in neat, clearly labeled boxes. The Impala, pristine and brilliant as the day she was bought, waits for them unlocked with the keys inside. _For Adam_ is written on the keychain. There is a tiny box in the passenger's seat labeled _For Sam_, and Adam has no qualms about opening it (because Sammy's _dead_, damn it). It holds Dean's amulet, one thing he has never, ever seen his brother without.

He does not wear it. It's not for him.

They stay in town for three days, putting up posters, questioning the locals, but Dean is nowhere to be found. Adam has every intention of continuing to look, until there is a knock on their hotel room door, and Adam opens it to discover all ten feet of Sam Winchester standing on the other side, his entire form caked in dirt and his eyes as lost and frightened and confused as Adam has ever seen him. It is a testament to the fact that Adam has only been a hunter for a year when he immediately wraps his brother in a frantic, desperate, disbelieving hug. Bobby has trouble prying them apart to do all the appropriate tests.

He passes. And just like that, Adam has Sammy back.

So where is this massive sense of dread coming from? Why isn't he happy about this?

And what the Hell happened to Dean?

* * *

He and Sam both set out to answer that question, and Adam learns more about demons and crossroads and deals than he ever thought possible. The investigation consumes them, but Adam can't really bring himself to care, because he is so thrilled to have Sam back that he is momentarily blind to all else. He is blind to the fact that Sam sneaks off alone at night without telling him on a semi-regular basis. He is blind to the fact that he has been seen with a mysterious woman who may or may not have black eyes (and not the kind Adam used to have). He is deaf to the early morning phone calls when Sam thinks he is asleep, where phrases like 'Lilith' and 'powers' and 'to protect him' are thrown around. He is oblivious, until the first night that he isn't—when he can no longer ignore his curiosity, and he follows Sam to an abandoned warehouse to find out what he is up to because even if he didn't actually get around to promising Dean he would take care of Sammy, Dean trusted him to do it. And it's not like he doesn't want to.

So he goes, and watches his brother and the woman he has been conducting his late night trysts with 'interrogating' a demon tied to a chair inside a Devil's Trap. He arrives in the middle of the confession.

"…_held up __**our**__ end of the bargain. We had no choice, since he held up his_." The demon's laugh makes his hair stand on end, but it doesn't scare him, not really. "_Dumb bastard didn't even ask for a __**day**__."_

"You're lying," Sam growls.

"_Not even a little. Dean knew he was downstairs material anyway_," the demon sneers.

"Bull. Shit. If anyone I have ever met deserves Heaven, it's Dean." Sam's voice is dangerous in a way that Adam has never heard before, and the woman is smirking.

"_Is that so? Maybe you should ask your __**other**__ brother what __**he**__ thinks. Oh-hoo, if you only knew the things those two did in the dark…_" The demon starts to laugh again, but it is cut short when Sam savagely thrusts a hand towards him. The chair shatters into splinters and the Devil's Trap circle is broken instantly, no longer needed, as the demon is pinned to a wall with nothing but the force of Sam's will. The screaming starts shortly thereafter.

Adam can only watch slack-jawed as the demon _shrieks_ in a way that he didn't know was possible for a living thing. Sam twists his hand, and the demon is twisted in response, screaming, and screaming, and **screaming**. And then, after what seems like an eternity, Adam Milligan witnesses something he didn't even know was _possible_: a demon, falling to its knees to _**weep**_ at his brother's feet and _**beg**_ for death. Sam delivers.

After the year he's been through, the list of things that really, truly scare him is pitifully short. Tonight, it gets a little longer. Tonight, Adam updates the list.

Tonight, there is a new Number One.


	2. Sam

**Title:** Bump in the Night, chapter 2: Sam  
**Author:** morkhan  
**Warnings:** Violence, abuse, drug use, addiction. Dark!Fic  
**Characters:** Adam, Sam, brief Ruby.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** 3897  
**Summary:** Adam has lost both of his brothers. It's almost a shame that only one of them actually died.  
**Disclaimer:** Keep them away from me. Kripke is a massage therapist compared to my cruel tortures. :(

**Author's Notes**: I revisited the dark place because you asked me to. I came out even worse than when I went in. v_v

* * *

Sam knows. Sam knows that he knows, and Adam knows that Sam knows that he knows, and Sam probably knows that Adam knows that Sam knows that he knows. But neither of them says anything, because apparently Pretend is the official Winchester family game and everyone is just so goddamn good at it that no one knows when to stop. Adam is getting better at it all the time, and the thought sickens him.

It's three weeks after he first sees Sam's dark (dark, _dark_, **dark**) side that he finally saves up enough courage in his chest to down a spoonful of reality. "Hey, Sammy," he starts, gently, softening him up for the ambush to come. He seems to like it when Adam calls him that. Dean told him once that Sam used to hate that name. "Who is that girl?"

Sam's head snaps up from reading the Ancient Tome of Whatever, and his deer-v.-headlights look stays on his face just long enough for Adam to commit it to memory before he schools it into a careful mix of nonchalance and confusion. _Don't do it, Sammy_, he mentally begs his older brother.

"What girl?" Sam asks, and _you did it. __**Damn**__ you, Sam._

Adam gets up off the bed. "Do you really think I'm that _dumb_?" he asks, not really wanting an answer, and Sam sighs.

"Adam… no I don't think you're dumb, I just… there is some stuff about this job… about _me_… that you're not ready for."

Adam tries not to sound as hurt as he is and fails miserably. "So, what? You don't trust me?"

"It's not that," Sam tries for soothing, but Adam will not be soothed.

"Then _what is it?_" he says, his voice approaching outdoor levels.

"Adam," Sam says, frustration starting to drip into his tone. "There are just some things it's better for you not to know. _Safer_ for you not to know. I'm just… I'm trying to keep you safe. That's all."

Disbelief is written all over Adam's face in neon-green highlighter. "Safe? Jesus _Christ_, Sam. What part of **any** of this," he says, gesturing wildly to the guns on the table, the newspaper clippings and protective sigils on the wall, the knives on the dresser, and the salt on the doors and windows, "is safe? Don't give me that _safe_ bullshit."

Now, Sam is angry, and Adam has to try very hard not to back away from him as he stands up. "You want to talk bullshit?" Sam says. "I'm not the only one who's keeping secrets around here, am I?"

Adam isn't as good at Pretend as Sam, and his own headlights-gaze lingers much longer than his brother's. "What do you mean?"

"What were you and Dean doing while I was dead?" Sam asks, cutting right to the chase.

"What do you mean?" Adam asks, again, because his brain is too busy running in circles like a panicked chicken to think of anything else at the moment.

"What was it," Sam asks, starting to encroach on Adam's personal space, and _oh, oh no, don't do it, don't do it, not you too, __**please**__._ "Blood magic? Human sacrifices? You were trying to bring me back, weren't you?" he accuses, and Adam is so relieved he practically laughs. Sam could not be further from the truth.

"No, nothing like that," Adam says without thinking, and Sam's eyes widen, because _oh shit_, he just admitted that something **was** happening.

"Then what was it?" Sam presses on, and Adam decides the best defense is a good offense.

"Who is she?" he says, less of a question, more of a challenge. He stands his ground.

The two of them stare each other down for a few seconds before Sam offers a compromise. "Alright, fine. We've both got secrets; you spill yours, and I'll spill mine. Deal?"

Adam really has to think about this. He wants Sam to know, because he wants Sam to understand. But how is that even possible? How could Sam ever understand this? There is just so much that telling him will shatter, ruin, break beyond repair. This revelation could very well destroy Sam, destroy _both_ of them and whatever relationship they still have left, and damn it all, Adam suddenly sympathizes with Sam's need to keep secrets from him, because some things are so great and terrible that there is no right way to learn them. But he can't ask Sammy to trust him if he isn't willing to reciprocate. So it is with a shuddering, unstable breath that he takes the tiny, dim flame of trust that still burns, puts it on a candle and gives it to his brother. "Deal."

* * *

Adam doesn't remember his exact words; just a whole lot of rambling and half-hearted justification and frenzied explanation, delivered in a halting stream-of-consciousness monologue because Sam did not do _anything_ while he spoke. He never interrupted, never asked questions, never even seemed to **react** to Adam's guts spewing out of his mouth and landing all over his feet. Adam's brother could have won millions of dollars in Poker tournaments with a face like that. When the revelation was finally over, Sam still sat, utterly still and silent, and for a second Adam wonders if time has stopped, or if maybe Sam died mid-speech and rigor mortis has already set in.

"No," is the word that breaks the silence and turns Stone Silent Sammy back into a person. "No. That wasn't Dean."

Adam closes his eyes. The flame bends over and quakes, growing dimmer. "Sam…"

"_No_," Sam shouts without raising his voice, carrying conviction harder than steel, and Adam can see it now. Sam will just give a casual flick of the wrist, and Adam will go flying into the wall. Maybe there will be a stray peg to hang coats or keys on and he'll land on it, choke and cough up blood as it stabs into his back and bursts from his front. He'll look down and bits and pieces of him will still be stuck on it, with more and more of him leaking out of the hole that it made, and he'll just hang there until Sam has a use for him or decides to finish him off.

"That wasn't Dean," Sam continues. "I know Dean, better than anyone. He would _never_ do that." Adam's eyes open again, and he notices that Sam is not looking at him as he speaks. "He was possessed."

"I tested him. Dipped his fingers in Holy Water while he was asleep," Adam says, knowing even as he says it that it's useless.

"Then it was a shapeshifter, or a magic spell… _something_." Adam just stares at the ground. He should have known. This is too much, so very, very _too much_ for Sammy to handle. Adam is trying to tell his brother that his Hero was a Villain; that God was mortal. What else could he expect? Sam thought he knew Dean better than anyone, and he was probably right, but there was one thing about him that Sam didn't know because he _couldn't_: what Dean was like without him. "Adam," he says, finally looking at his baby brother. "I'm sorry… for what happened to you. But that wasn't Dean. You know that, right? That _wasn't Dean_."

Adam understands. It's playtime again. "Okay," he says, sounding like almost means it. He's getting better and better at this game.

"I've gotta go," Sam says, quickly standing up and grabbing his jacket. "I'll be back in the morning."

"Okay," he says again, and it's not until the door has closed that Adam realizes Sam left without giving him any answers to _his_ questions. He's pretty sure he isn't the first to note the irony; demons that make deals have no choice but to hold to them. It's the _human_ deals you have to watch out for.

* * *

He learns, eventually, and the revelations are so profound that he literally does not know what to do with them. There is just _**so much**_ that he doesn't know, so much about this life and this hidden shadow-world that is only learned by experience and word-of-mouth that Adam can't help but hate the Hunters of the world for being so goddamn stingy with their secrets. Sam is working with Ruby. Ruby, who saved his life. Ruby, who is a demon. Ruby, who is a **trustworthy** demon. It seems like it should be an oxymoron, but again, there is so much that Adam doesn't know that he has no choice but to take Sam at his word. Besides, there are lots of stories about demons who aren't really evil… surely they have to have some basis in reality, right?

Their formal introduction is more than a little awkward on both ends, but at least Ruby gives him a present. "Here you go, squirt," she says, and Adam bristles at the pet name as she hands him an ancient-looking knife, strange runes carved into the blade. "Think of it as a peace offering. I'm not exactly a _people_ demon, but I like Sam, and Sam likes you, so I figure we might as well get used to each other. This knife can kill demons. It's the only thing besides the Colt—and darling Sammy, here—that can do the job. It'll come in handy, so learn how to use it." Adam wants to test it, but the only demon around is Ruby, and Sam probably wouldn't appreciate that. He takes her advice, though, and starts training with the knife as much as he can. It helps take his mind off of other things.

Things like Sam, who is convinced that he can bring Dean back if he just finds the right demon. Things like Lilith, who is apparently one of the most powerful and ancient demons in existence, who escaped from Hell when the Devil's Gate opened and has a special place in her personal torture chamber for Sammy and himself. Things like the Apocalypse, which is apparently scheduled to start any time now, just as soon as one of the countless demons now roaming the earth finds the _On_ switch.

The one thing he can't take his mind off of is… well… the signs. He sees them growing in Sam every day. Skipping meals, personality changes, sneaking out at all hours… sneaking, even though Adam _knows_ about Ruby. Other people might miss them, but Adam doesn't, because Adam has seen the signs before. There was a period when he saw them every time he looked in a mirror.

When Adam was 14, he broke his ankle during a basketball game and had to have surgery to fix it. Nothing major, but it laid him up for much of the summer, and it hurt like a _bitch_, or it would have, anyway, if not for the lovely painkillers they prescribed him. Adam liked those; since all his friends were out of town on various engagements, they really helped to pass the time. He liked them so much, in fact, that he decided to tell a little white lie to the doctor about the severity of his pain in follow-up visits to ensure that he got some more. He started skipping meals, forgetting engagements, forgetting pretty much everything in favor of zoning out and floating around in a haze. And even though he never exactly wound up selling himself on the streets or pawning off possessions to pay for his habit, it wasn't one of his finest moments—in fact, it was arguably the lowest he had ever sunk in his (old) life, and he still occasionally berates himself for how _stupid_ he was being and how much he could have lost if anyone found out. But he was lonely and bored and maybe even a little depressed, so he let his stupidity carry him right into the middle of an addiction to prescription narcotics.

His mom wasn't around enough to notice his descent, but ironically enough, that simple fact made her realize what was happening to him _sooner_, as she came in to talk to him one day and found a boy so far removed from her mental picture of him that she _knew_ he had to be sick. It was only after a more thorough check-up that she realized what his _real _problem was. She sat him down and told him that she knew. She knew because she, too, once had a very similar problem. Adam didn't see what the big deal was, because he was still functioning just fine, and it wasn't like he had class or anything important that he was missing, but she held firm and insisted that it stop. And in the back of his mind, Adam knew she was right—school was starting again in a couple of weeks, and Adam had no intention of stopping on his own.

He expected punishment. He expected lockdown, constant supervision, and some seriously epic lectures on the evils of drug use. What he did not expect was for his mom to take him to the beach. A few days after she found out, she put in some vacation time at the hospital, and just took off with him. Naturally, the pills were left behind, and what followed was simultaneously the best and worst vacation he could possibly imagine. His mom forced him to go cold turkey, which was the same way she had to do it, and Adam was fucking miserable for _days_. Everything hurt, he was constantly nauseous and was lucky if anything that went into him didn't leave through the same door. He hated it, and he hated _her_ for putting him through it. Yet she was there with him every step of the way—rubbing his back when he puked, holding him while he shook, silently absorbing every vile, hateful, hurtful comment he threw at her and reassuring him that it was okay, that everything would be okay. And eventually, it was. It took up about half their 'vacation' but Adam's body eventually rid itself of the narcotics and his need for them, and a tired, weak, ten-or-so-pounds-lighter Adam finally left the hotel with his mom to go enjoy the beach for a few days. It was great; hanging out, playing miniature golf, relaxing on the sands with her… he couldn't remember another time when they just came together as a family and enjoyed each other's company like that. But strangely enough, it was the drive back to Windom, when the two of them just talked, and talked, and _talked_, that he remembers most of all. He got to know his mom in ways he never realized he didn't, and never felt closer to her than in that moment.

Sometimes, he kind of wonders if maybe _that's_ why Sam and Dean are so fucked up, and why he is so weak—Sam and Dean (not Adam) had a father to make them strong, while Adam (not Sam and Dean) had a mother to make him _good_.

So Adam sees the signs of addiction in Sam. But Adam is nobody's mom, and he doesn't think Sam will appreciate whatever hairbrained scheme his baby brother cooks up to help him get rid of his habit. But he has to try. He _has_ to, because his mom did it for him, because she loved him, and because he loves Sam, loves him so goddamn much that it hurts. And because Sam is it for him, even if the reverse isn't true.

* * *

It happens on a Thursday, like everything else seems to. It's October, and just getting cold enough to break out the heavy-duty jackets. He pinpoints the source of Sammy's addiction in a silver flask, and snatches it while Sam is showering, hiding it under his mattress. He doesn't open it, because he isn't sure he wants to _know_ what's inside. It takes Sam about an hour to realize it's missing.

"Where's my flask?" he asks.

Adam looks up at him with a quizzical tilt to his head. "Where's your what?" He is better than Sammy at Pretend now, though probably just because Sammy's off his game.

"You _know_ what," Sam seethes. "You're the only one who could've taken it. I know _exactly_ where I left it, and it's not there. Now, _where is it?_"

Adam gulps. God, this was such a terrible idea. "I don't know."

Sam tosses his hands into the air. "Damn it, Adam, this isn't funny. I _need_ that thing. You don't even know what's _in_ the damn flask!"

"I'd know if you'd tell me." He maintains his cool.

Sam falters. "It's medicine," he says.

"For what?" Adam presses.

"The headaches I get from living with you," Sam deadpans, though his voice is a little less steady than it could be. Amateur.

Adam shrugs. "Got plenty of Tylenol if you can't find your booze. That _is_ what's in there, right?"

Sam responds by beginning to tear the room apart. He opens every drawer, pulls out anything inside and tosses it to the ground. He tears the mattress off of his own bed, and eventually turns to Adam's stuff. Adam remains carefully calm, sitting on the bed as Sam tears through his possessions, scattering his clothes through the kitchenette in their hotel. This was apparently the wrong thing to do, however, as Sam notices him maintaining his position. "Get up," he commands.

"What for?" Adam asks, but Sam again chooses to answer with action as he grabs the mattress—with Adam still on it—and heaves it over his head. Adam slides off and lands on his feet, and moves _just_ fast enough to snatch the flask before Sam, holding it away from his brother.

"Give it to me, Adam," Sam growls, his voice low and dangerous.

"Tell me what it is!" Adam demands, his heart pounding in his ears because damn it, this isn't how things were supposed to go.

"You don't. Need. To know." Sam looks like he is about three inches from setting Adam on fire. But no… Sam wouldn't do that. Sam wouldn't kill him over _this_.

"I spilled all my secrets," Adam says, still holding the flask away from his brother. "I got nothing left to hide. So why are you still hiding stuff from me?"

Sam's voice is a deadly hiss, full of venom. "I'm doing this to _protect_ you. That's all you need to know."

"Bullshit," Adam spits.

"Just _give_ it to me!" Sam shouts and makes a grab for it. Adam ducks underneath him and dives into the bathroom.

"No! This is _crap_, Sam; I don't know what you're on, but it stops **now**." He unscrews the flask and pours the contents into the toilet, and feels his stomach and heart clench together like they're trying to merge when he sees the deep, _deep_ red of the liquid that comes out.

"You _**idiot!**_" Adam turns his head only to run into Sam's fist, slamming into his jaw and knocking him into a wall. The flask clatters to the ground, spilling the remainder of the liquid on the floor, but Sam isn't done yet—he grabs Adam by the shirt and throws him with every ounce of violence the enormous man can muster. Adam flies out of the tiny bathroom, destroying a partition with his face and landing on a glass table which shatters on impact.

When he regains his bearings, his first thought is: _this should hurt_.

He can see his reflection in the broken glass. There are multiple lacerations on his face, fresh and dripping, and he looks like he ran himself through a paper shredder. His jaw seems to be slightly crooked, maybe broken. There are cuts and bruises and entirely too much blood… but no pain. There is only pseudo-sensation, an imitation ache that simmers at a low boil just below his skin. Every sensation seems distant and dull, like it has to cross the entire universe to reach him and by the time it arrives, it is cold and tired and doesn't even remember why it came. There is no sense of betrayal, no rage, no sadness. Just a strangle, sickly feeling as something inside of him vomits, shits itself, and _dies_. The fire is out.

When Sam emerges from the bathroom, there are streaks of red dribbling from his mouth to his chin and even down his neck, and Adam recognizes the shade. Oh. Blood. Interesting. His brother has a wrecked expression on his face and an apology loaded and ready to fire. "Oh my God… Adam, I am **so** sorry, I can't believe…" A simple _click_ cuts him off, because Adam has something _else_ loaded and ready to fire, and he is aiming it straight at Sam. His hands are steady. "Adam," Sam says, eyes wide. "Adam, what are you doing? Put that down…"

"No," Adam says, his face twisting into a hollow smile. "No. You're not Sam."

"Adam," Sam has the gall to look heartbroken.

"_No_," Adam whispers, an exhale so fierce that it probably carries bits of lung out with it. "You're **not** Sam." He keeps right on smiling, if the twisted, empty expression on his face can be called that. "I _know_ Sam," he says, following it with a laugh that is as dark and humorless as Hell itself, "better than **anyone**. He would _**never do that**_." His voice cracks near the end, but his teeth are clenched and one finger is on the trigger. Blood from his forehead runs into his eyes, but he does not blink. His hands are steady.

"Adam… _please_, put it down. You don't want to shoot me…" Sam starts to approach him, very gently. He doesn't get far.

The shot is impossibly loud in the small hotel room; the bullet slams into the wall next to his head, showering him with exploded plaster. Sam freezes in horror. "Never point a gun at anything you're not ready to kill," Adam says, the false smile slipping off of his face and leaving a wasteland in its wake. His voice is flat and devastated as a tornado-ravaged Kansas plain. His hands are steady.

Sam pleads with him, part afraid, part soothing, part sorrowful. "I can explain this, all of this, I promise. I am your brother, I swear to God…"

"My brothers are dead," Adam says, no fluctuation, no emotion, no change. He gestures towards the bathroom. "Go."

Sam, with bits of wall sticking to his face like powdered sugar on red icing, raises his hands and complies, staring at the ground the whole time

Adam follows him. Stares at him with lifeless eyes. His hands are steady. He takes a stuttering breath, opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He tries again, and succeeds. His voice hitches when he speaks. "My brothers are dead," is all he says, because there is nothing else to be said.

Nothing else to be destroyed.

Nothing to be done.

Nothing left.

Nothing.

Nothing.

_Nothing_.

His hands shake.

* * *

"Ma'am, please, calm down. Tell me your location one more time."

"_I'm at the Taj Motel on Highway 47._"

"I've got a unit headed there now. You said there were shots fired, correct?"

"_Yeah, yeah, one shot, about a minute ago, and—__**AH!**__"_

"Ma'am! Ma'am! What happened? Are you alright?"

"_I just… oh god... I… I… I heard another shot_."


End file.
